I know teaching is exhausting and stressful, however, there are some key ways that you can manage your fatigue. So here are three tips on how you can manage teacher fatigue:
- Learn to pace yourself.
- Manage your sleep, nutrition and exercise.
- Avoid being the tyrant
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1. Learn to Pace Yourself
The first tip for managing teacher fatigue is that you have got to learn to pace yourself. To put it another way, you need to take a breath, not every lesson needs to be high intensity or high energy, some lessons can be quiet. It is ok to dial the lesson down, especially if you have got stressful situations in your personal life. If you need to lower the energy it’s ok, design some lessons that are a little bit more quiet.
Have times in your day when students are working quietly on activities by themselves, you do not have to be teaching explicitly all the time. Make sure that you give yourself that margin where the kids can work independently. I like to do it straight after each break, where I have five to ten minute activities that they work on independently and quietly with no interaction from me. That just helps me to regroup and stay focused. So that’s the first tip, take a break, take a breath. Do not be full of high energy all the time. Learn to pace yourself.
2. Manage Your Sleep, Nutrition and Exercise
The second tip is that you have got to manage your sleep, nutrition and exercise. If you are not eating right, that is going to affect your energy levels in the classroom. So make sure you are aware of what you consume and the effect it has on you. If you have a high carb or high sugar diet that increases your fatigue levels, this will affect your ability to teach. Secondly, start moving, do some kind of exercise that gets your body moving and your blood flowing. You can go to the gym or just walk everyday. That will help to increase your energy.
Also do not underestimate the importance of sleep. The right amount of sleep helps you to stay focused and engaged mentally and physically. So make sure you are getting enough sleep so that your body functions well. I’ve got some other blog articles on how you can do that, so go and check them out on the Calmer Classrooms page. So that is the second tip, make sure you manage your nutrition, sleep and exercise.
3. Avoid being the Tyrant
The last tip is this, avoid being the tyrant. I know this style of teaching is not as popular nowadays and there are probably less teachers that take on the tyrant approach. However, I still meet these types of teachers from time to time, who want to be the drill sergeant. They are always intense, angry and operating at a level of 10 in their intensity. They are intense and ‘aggro’ all the time. This is really exhausting for you as a teacher. It takes a lot of effort to put out that kind of energy all the time. So I encourage you to try and take a calmer more relationship-based approach to teaching.
Get to know your kids. You do not have to be their best friend neither do you have to even like them all the time. Some kids are hard to like but build relationships and look for ways to positively engage with your students. Look for positivity in the classroom. Use a positive tone when you speak and interact with your kids. You will find that when your classroom has a more positive rather than a negative, tyrant-like environment, you will have more energy and you will last longer as a teacher.
These are three keys that are going to help you. They are really important because more and more teachers are dropping out of this profession primarily because of stress and burnout. So if you want to stay in this game for a long time you need to be making sure that you look after yourself. Manage your stress well.
So, to recap quickly, the first key was to take a breather, make sure you create space in your lessons, do not always have your lessons at high energy levels. Create some time when the kids can work independently. The second one is to manage your nutrition, exercise and sleep. This is very important if you want longevity as a teacher. The third one is, do not be a tyrant, who is always negative and ‘agro’ in your class. Inject some positivity into the class. Have relationship-based teaching interactions with your students and you will find that you will have more energy. You will feel more enthused and excited about getting through your day and you will last longer as a teacher, I promise.
Thanks so much for reading this blog. I hope you got a ton of value out of it. Don’t forget to comment and let us know what you thought or if you have specific topics you’d like us to cover. We would love to hear from you.
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